Little Rock

So we went to Little Rock this weekend to see my old roommate Richard and his family. They’ve got 2 boys and 2 girls and they are all wonderful and we had an absolute blast. Richard did a ton of work here for us on the new (old) house since he knows how to do everything and has every tool known to man and builds houses for a living. So in an attempt to pay him back for all the sweat and blood (he almost lost a finger), I brought all my good junk down there and got some really great images of them. They’re also in a new (new) house and Brooke (the wife) wants some good photos to decorate.


It rained so we went to the Capital and got some groovy stuff all over the place and then did a bunch indoor at their house. Awesome weekend.

Avery's Concert...

...was awesome!!! I got a bunch of great shots but for right now, here's 2...

More Rain

So we’ve got a ton of rain which is great for the flowers we have (that we didn’t plant). It’s also good for the trees so Harry Potter (below) doesn’t have to use magic to give them a drink anymore. And yet we haven’t had enough to fill our new church baptistery yet (also below). Maybe we should have gone with the smaller model.

Wedding Season

It's May so that means it's time for me to be crazy busy with weddings. I actually am pretty busy with that so yay! Unfortunatly, I'm a little behind on some other projects so I don't have time for blogging as much as I'd like. I can't even go fishing like Luke and David. I grew up with those guys and got ahold of those shots and it's weird because they haven't aged a day. I guess it's that fresh ocean air.

Happy Birthday Erin!

Doesn't it look like she's selling stuff? I'd buy those candles. We had a great weekend and Erin turned 31 today. And today Preston turned 40, holy cow what a bunch of oldies eh? And here I am pushin 24, I guess someday I'll be ancient and confused like my wife and friends but until then, I know I'm hip and all the kids think I'm a rightous dude. Yep, I hang out at the cool places like the MFA listening to my Poison and Milli Vanilli tapes and Young MC stuff.
But enough about me, Erin had a good time and got to have a stress free weekend, we even had Friday night without either of the kiddos so we went out and saw a movie and then it was so late we had to head home. I think it was almost 10:30 or something. Yep, we're pretty rowdy so look out!

Beware the power of the dark side...

I’m nervous about T.J. He’s not going to be a physicist or an accountant and he’s about to graduate high school. He’s been through a lot and I don’t want to say too much here on the internet and all but let’s just say I think his life is about to go one way or the other and it could be really great, wonderful good stuff or it could get really bad. He’s kind of at that Anakin Skywalker stage in Episode 3 when he’s getting conflicting direction from Palpatine and the Jedi Council.
…
Holy cow I’m a dork.
…
Anyway, everybody please pray for T.J. cause he’s family to me and Erin and the kids and we love him and hope he has a great life.

What was I saying...

...about kids being so much fun to photograph and how it's like playing and all that...well, maybe not always. I almost photoshoped a goatie to see just how much he'd look like his dad.

Testing the whole emailing thing

Can't see this? Here's the solution, oh wait...

So my own sister-in-law can’t get this blog because her school is really restrictive about what sites they let you get on. AND, my buddy Craig (you might remember him from this) can’t get on this blog at work anymore because of the same deal. Well, I’m working on a solution so everyone who wants to can get their fix of mindless commentaries from me and others as well as the photos that are always a little less appropriate than what my mother would like.
Basically the new post would come to you via email so you wouldn’t have to take a virtual step on the actual site. Also, you shouldn’t have to wonder if there’s anything new or not, anything new would come to you via email. So if you want me to add you to this service, email me and you will then get an invite that makes sure you really want to be added to the group. Don’t use my john.amundson@gmail.com cause I never check that one, email me at john_amundson@hotmail.com and I’ll know.
OK, after promising all of this it had better work or I’ll feel like a big dork.

Rain

So it's raining and that always makes me kind of want to go and shoot some puddles but then I'm like, well, maybe when it's done raining and then you know what happens? I forget and never get shots to work with like this one that's a puddle at a strip mall. This one reminds me of the Division Bell faces from Pink Floyd, kinda like those Easter Island dudes. I know, I know, you're thinking how about less weird stuff and more bunnies and flowers. I'll get right on it. But I still like my puddles.

Forget it, I need my color...

I photographed Mr. Clayton the other day and it's always fun working with little guys like him. I find that I have to kind of think about the environment the way the little ones would and then I totally loose track of time because in a way, I'm just sort of playing. Sort of. At the same time I've got to make sure I'm getting it right and all, but it's very different than say, shooting the vice president...oops, you can't say that can you. I mean "photographing" the vice. Anyway, tons of fun with bubbles. Everybody go out and get some because it's a wonderful thing to do!

Ugly

Avery helped me with a shoot and then she took some shots of me making faces and then we did a few together. She’s really scary here…I wonder who she gets that from…

Shadow=Black, Highlight=White

Just a few minutes before Survivor...thought I'd throw these up...

Silly Team

One of my favorite things about doing sports photos is doing a silly shot. Some teams don't really understand the concept and kind of give me a blank stare, and some teams cross their eyes and stick out their tongues. This team I had the other day had me crackin up.

Keep Smiling!!

Avery cracks me up. She'll keep smiling for the photo even when she's breaking her brother's neck. And Alec has so much anger, like a fat lady on a hover-round at the grocery store spotting the coupon beans on the upper shelf.

Anyway, I'd better watch what I post or I'll get flagged for youth violence as well as crude humor.

What's in a name

From what I understand, some folks from Juneau may be tuning in to this blog this week (maybe, and they’ll probably fall asleep reading this and end up ripping their modems out so they can say “sorry, just couldn’t get a good connection” and not have to check back) and anyway, they don’t know that the Angie who posts comments is NOT my sister from Arizona, it’s our friends from church (well they don’t live at church and actually the church is the people not a building so how could they anyway…what am I talking about). Some of the comments you may or may not dare to read may or may not make more sense if you know that distinction.
And now for something completely different and horribly inappropriate for a family blog like this and yet I really feel like I have no choice but to show the following…

Adam and I were talking about color. Well, I was anyway, and how black and white photography is a little too easy and color is actually more difficult because people deal with expectations of what they think reality should look like in a photograph. With black and white images, you already have a deal with the viewer where they understand and agree to throw the notion of reality out the window a bit since we live in a world of color and therefore any black and white image is going to be an artistic escape from reality. With color images, if you want to adjust color for artistic reasons, people frown and wonder if something went wrong. Also you can have an image that is incredibly well composed, well planned and well exposed but color can kill or make the image. Black and white images (to me) are, well, easier than color. That doesn’t make them less cool but they don’t wow me as much as an amazing color image.



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Happy Easter!!

Younger times...

At my folks we got some of the old photos out and tried to find some good Easter stuff. Well, we found some funny stuff and some this and that but it was kinda late so we just picked out a couple for fun from when me and my sister Angie were in Alaska as kids fishing and when we were horseback riding somewhere, and our family by the Mendenhall glacier.

Big weekend plans...whoops sick instead

We were going to go to Little Rock to see the Burton family but Erin got sick. Then I got sick. So we sent our kids to boarding school at my folks and that's that. Wahhh.

Full Moon

You know, I've read somewhere that there are more crimes committed on full moon nights than on other nights. Also, there are more brawls and animal attacks. I don't know if it's true but I'm not going drinking with any bears tonight I'll tell you that!

Heather and Chris

Fancy bumpin into...

You'll never guess who I bumped into yesterday. Dick came to town and of course wanted to hang out with me for awhile. I was pretty busy but I decided I'd make time somehow. I don't know what you people think of the man or where you stand politically, but I was pretty impressed with his concern for our countries safety. It was nice getting to hear a speech that wasn't already edited by NBC or anything or followed up with a bunch or grumpy reporter questions. When you get right down to it, these guys have done a lot of good, even though all we hear about is the mess-ups and the levies and the war and other negative junk that sells papers. I think Mr. Cheney may not have too many opportunites to get a word out that isn't first filtered and twisted somehow. So I suppose you could say, I think a lot of people just really don't KNOW Dick.

Spring

Ahh Spring, the birds are eating bugs and other gross stuff, the bunnies are....doing their thing, the leaves I never got around to raking last year are decomposing on their own, the taxes....ah man, I'd better get on that!!

Last weekend...

By the way, if you haven't checked out some of Craig’s shots from the skate party, you really should, they're really fun. And while I'm plugging other photographers, you ought to see how Mr. Adam Cole is doing with his emerging photo talent at his photoblog, and I'd be a big stink if I didn't also mention my buddy Preston. Marc was the official photog at the Horn/Van Zant wedding that we went to this weekend. It was nice getting to actually dance at a wedding and I don't think I hurt Erin's feet too bad. That's the groom Jeremy playing guitar in the Led Zeppllin shirt. And that's his dad playing guitar while he and his new bride Abby dance, congrats to both of them!